The Guardian's claim that the government has urged universities "to spy" on Muslim students has been denied by Ruth Kelly. She has told the BBC: "I don't recognise the way that work [sic] has been portrayed. This is not about picking on individual students or even spying on them, it's about sensible monitoring of activities to make sure individual students on campus are protected."

Ms Kelly is, of course, absolutely right to make it clear to universities and colleges that there is a "serious problem of extremism on campuses" (the precise words are those of Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, interviewed on Sky TV on 4 October - he used the word "serious" twice). Her suggestion that that universities and colleges should, however, not "spy" on their students is also spot on ("spying" is to secretly collect secret information and Special Branch and MI5 are paid to do this, not dons).

But Ms Kelly is also perfectly right to say that academics and academic administrators should "monitor" what goes on in campuses. Monitoring, after all, is what they are paid to do. This is simply another way of pointing out to them that they should know who their students are, what they are concerned with, and if they believe they are being drawn into extremism, dons should discuss this with their students and tell their academic registrars if they think it is necessary.

If the argument is that they are too busy to do any of these things (it's a point of view I have a great deal of sympathy with), universities should either hire more staff, or take fewer students. If the case that is being made follows the Federation of Student Islamic Societies' line ("terrorists may have gone to university but they may also have shopped at Tesco's or Sainsbury's - this does not make supermarkets a breeding ground for extremism and terror") it ignores three fundamental points about extremists on campus.

First, campuses offer a secure space for extremist activity which supermarkets (and society at large) do not provide. Second, campuses are at risk because as the government itself stated in 2004 "British Muslims who are most at risk of being drawn into extremism and terrorism fall into two groups - those who are well educated, typically targeted by extremist recruiters and organisations circulating on campuses, and secondly underachievers". Of course you find both high and underachievers on many campuses these days as every don knows. Third, precisely because they are campuses and extremists are often concerned with ideas, higher education offers society a way of detoxing extremists and containing the mentality of violence and apartheid that fuels all extremists.

Paul Mackney, University College and Lecturers' Union leader, claims there is now a danger of universities "being sucked into a kind of anti-Islamic McCarthyism". What Mr Mackney needs to understand is that all universities are committed to honour a fundamental obligation as set out in the 1997 Dearing report that "the aim of higher education is to play a major role in shaping a democratic, civilised and inclusive society". It is not McCarthyism to point out that extremists by definition reject democratic ways of solving conflict, that they are not civilised and that they are utterly opposed to the concept of inclusivity.

There is increasing evidence of extremist activity on UK campuses but also on campuses in other states (Canada, Australian and Germany to name but three). On 18 September 2006 there was a report that extremists had been successfully prevented from infiltrating UEA, not least by the Muslim Imam of the university. Certainly we should welcome the government's attempts to get universities to look carefully at what they should be doing in this field. In trying to deal with this problem, we will not be creating a secret police state but preventing extremists from trying to establish one in line with their values and beliefs.